Bradford Pine, '89 (B.S. Business Management)
His tips could be worth a million bucks

Unfortunately, it seems the only money to be made on Wall Street these days is the imaginary kind.

But for Bradford Pine, a registered principal/Investment Advisor with Cantella & Co. and a member of C.W. Post's class of 1989, even imaginary money is worth something -- $50,000 to be exact.

Pine, who graduated with a B.S. in business management, signed up for cable network CNBC's "Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge" along with 254,000 other contestants. When the contest was over 10 weeks later, he had turned his fictitious $1 million into an impressive $2.8 million and earned himself a $50,000 third-place prize.

"I watch CNBC all day long," Pine said. "I figured I'd give the contest a shot." Pine, who says he's incredibly goal-oriented, originally wanted to earn a spot in the top 25, whose names appear on the CNBC web site. Once he conquered that, he started looking to the top 10 and eventually a prize situation.

"I was thinking winning was a long shot, but one thing led to the next," he said. Pine said the strategies he employed in the game are not ones he applies to real life, preferring to stick to long-term investments. "This was a contest," he said. "A lot of it was the timing. I followed the money and the momentum." In the financial industry since 1991, Pine said he usually manages longer term money, mutual funds and diversified portfolios.

Pine, who lives in Carl Place with his wife Sally and children Abigail and Clayton, said that his time at C.W. Post, where he was vice president of the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity, was one of the best of his life. And now that's he in the public spotlight, he said he regularly hears not only from Wall Street reporters fielding queries, but people he hasn't spoken to in years, which he is enjoying.

"It's been a great experience all around," he said.

Posted; October 10, 2008